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Vinaigrette, Sauce a La

This is a sauce much used in Paris for cold viands. Sauce a la vinaigrette is composed of salad oil, vinegar, finely-chopped parsley, and shallots, onions, or chives, with pepper and salt to taste. For those who have no objection to oil this sauce is infinitely superior to mere vinegar, pepper, and salt. It is suitable for every kind of cold meat, and especially for cold calf's head; and is admirable with cold salmon, turbot, or, indeed, any sort of cold fish. Hardboiled eggs also eat extremely well with sauce a la vinaigrette; so do many kinds of cold vegetables, and especially asparagus; in fact, this is quite as often eaten cold as hot in Paris, and always a la vinaigrette. Cold artichokes are also very largely consumed with this sauce. When used for cold meat, and particularly with calf's head, the addition of a few capers to the sauce is a great improvement; and with cold roast meat a gherkin cut up fine is excellent. As this is a sauce produced almost entirely out of the cruet-stand, it suits well with our English habits. You rub up the salt and pepper with a little vinegar, then add as much oil as you please, with chopped parsley, shallot, gherkins, or capers, according to convenience or taste.